The equivalent of 70 nurse tanks of nitrogen per day and one truckload of phosphorous per hour is flowing through the confluence of the Des Moines and the Raccoon rivers in central Iowa. This represents an estimated $50 million annually in agriculturally valuable nutrients lost as water pollutants. So says the “Currents of Change” analysis recently released by Iowa’s Polk County.
“Those nutrients would be much better spent as fertilizer applied to crops that are actually helping our plants grow and producing food that feed people,” says Eliot Anderson of University of Iowa, one of the analysis’ 16 contributing scientists, who spoke at a livestreamed public event presenting the findings.
The analysis highlighted several key findings about the central-Iowa watershed that supplies drinking water to the Des Moines metro area. These included ecological issues like declining biodiversity, fish kill events and harmful algal blooms and water safety problems like antibiotic-resistant, disease-causing pathogens, PFAS and pesticides…